Photo from Karin Lee’s film Small Pleasures courtesy of SUM gallery
The only gallery in Canada dedicated to presenting queer art is holding its first exhibition in May featuring Vancouver artist Karin Lee.
Karin Lee:QueerSUM is curated by Paul Wong, who is doing a year-long residency at the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Gardens and Queer Arts Festival artistic director SD Holman.
"We wanted the first artist exhibited at SUM, which is located in the heart of Chinatown to be Chinese. We wanted an artist with deep links to Vancouver's Chinese and queer communities both, a woman whose work was challenging and transgressive and queer. In other words, we wanted Karin Lee, a local artist who is 4th generation Chinese Canadian," said the curators in a joint statement.
SD Holman says a dim sum restaurant was originally supposed to be built in the space but it never happened. SUM gallery, honours that past with sum meaning heart and also being a world used to refer to queer people in Cantonese. It was also important to house the gallery in a space that had never been occupied, says Holman, to ensure that it was not contributing to gentrification in Chinatown.
“Chinatown has been a site for many marginalized communities, Indigenous, Chinese, queer and black a lot of artists work here and find meaning in this area. We're very excited to be working here,” she says.
The Queer Arts Festival launched a crowdfunding campaign for the gallery space last year, which received an enthusiastic response and raised $21,000 in a month.
The exhibit's name queer-sum is described as a "Chinglish" translation and a play on the words Queer Love - alluding to the queer attraction that people who believe themselves to be straight-identified experience.
Karin Lee My Sweet Peony photo courtesy of SUM gallery
The solo exhibition presents three of Karin Lee’s media works including a two-channel remix of her 16mm drama film My Sweet Peony, which was shot in the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Gardens; a documentary shot in Beijing called Portrait of a Girl; and a period drama set in Barkerville B.C. titled Small Pleasures.
Karin Lee My Sweet Peony photo courtesy of SUM gallery
QueerSUM opens May 12 and runs until August 18 at SUM gallery #425-268 Keefer Street with an artist talk presented on May 17.
